


Could've, Would've, Might've

by strippedhalo



Category: 17 Again (2009)
Genre: F/M, Het, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:38:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strippedhalo/pseuds/strippedhalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, at the end of the day, she likes to run herself a hot bath, lie back, and think about how things might have been, how they would have gone if she'd never found out who Mark Gold really was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could've, Would've, Might've

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rumidha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumidha/gifts).



Scarlett is glad about how things turned out, so grateful for whatever magic brought the Mike that she loved back to her and the kids, but sometimes. Sometimes, at the end of the day, she likes to run herself a hot bath, lie back, and think about how things might have been, how they would have gone if she'd never found out who Mark Gold really was.

\--

It's been a long day, and Scarlett is exhausted. More than that, her heart is so sore. She doesn't know how this can be so hard. She threw Mike out, she applied for the divorce, this was _her choice_, but she misses him all the time. Even more, now, with Alex's friend Mark hanging around all the time, wearing Mike's face, the one he had when they were young and perfect.

The kids are both gone for the night, so she doesn't bother closing the bedroom door before getting undressed. When she is down to her lingerie, she picks up her hairbrush and starts running it slowly through her hair, wincing every time the bristles snag in a tangle.

"Is that a new bra?" someone says from the shadows. Scarlett is too startled to scream, all she can do is brandish her hairbrush like it's something that will do any good against a murderer or a rapist or... Mark, who is stepping into the dim light from the bedside lamp.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" She drops the hairbrush and grabs the closest bit of clothing she sees, a cardigan thrown over the foot of the bed. It's not enough to preserve her modesty, but it's better than nothing. "This is totally inappropriate, Mark, what were you thinking?"

"Sorry, I just. I wanted to see you." It shouldn't be flattering, but he looks so earnest, and his words start a little curl of warmth unfurling in her chest. Or maybe that's the three glasses of wine she had after dinner.

"How did you even get in?" He keeps moving, taking slow steps across the room toward her. She thinks she should step back, preserve the distance, but doesn't want to lose ground, doesn't want to give anything away.

He takes another step forward. "I used the hide-a-key." The hide-a-key, of course, the one that nobody is supposed to know about, especially not teenaged stalkers-in-training, no matter how attractive Scarlett might secretly think they are.

"That is crossing the line, Mark," she says sternly, as though this kid cares anything at all about lines or boundaries or decency, considering he's been hiding in her bedroom, watching her undress. "You can't keep doing things like this."

"Why not?" He is right up in her space now, and although they are nearly the same height, it feels like he is towering over her. Scarlett wonders if she has made a tactical error by not backing away. He must have gotten the wrong impression - even if it is secretly the right one.

"Listen, Mark, I know that kids today. The trend is." She cannot believe she has to say these words. "I know that in movies and the internet, whatever, people like to talk about, you know, moms you'd like to, um, but that really doesn't mean that you should..."

He cuts off her babbling with a laugh, but the sound is somehow melancholy. "You are so much more than that to me," he whispers. He is so close now, so close and she can feel his breath on her mouth, his chest barely brushing hers with each inhalation. His eyes are so blue, and he looks so much like Mike, and he is _so young_. They stay like that for a moment, too long, and just as she's about to pull away, he sways forward and kisses her.

He tastes like Mike's favourite chewing gum and Mike's favourite beer, but he kisses her like he has never wanted anything more in his life, and Mike hasn't kissed her like that in years. His hands come up to cradle his face, and she should be pulling away, this is so, so wrong, but it's so nice to be _touched_, and instead of pulling back, she shoves both hands into his hair. She runs her fingers through, gets it good and messy, and then tugs sharply at a handful.

Mark gasps and breaks away from the kiss, and then he is shoving forward, even closer, his hands on her back pulling her flush against his body.

She can feel how hard he is, and so eager, like a teenage boy. Which is what he is, she remembers with a jolt. Mark is a _teenager_, Jesus Christ, he's the same age as Maggie, only a couple of years older than Alex. What is she _doing_, this is crazy, but then he slips his hand inside her cardigan where it's gaping open, and that train of thought goes abruptly off the rails.

Mark's fingers trip over her breasts, rubbing gently against a peaked nipple over the fabric of her bra. It _is_ new, a ridiculous, uncomfortable thing that Naomi made her buy, saying that she should dress like a woman who expected to get laid, even if she wasn't getting any. Right about now, she figures that she might owe Naomi a drink.

Speaking of drinks, Scarlett thinks maybe she should have stopped at two glasses of wine earlier, because without any conscious thought, her hands are suddenly at Mark's waist, tugging his shirt up and over his head. His abs are just as amazing as she won't admit that she thought they'd be, and she runs her hands over them, marvelling at the way the muscles jump under his smooth skin at her touch.

Then, like a switch has been flipped, Mark is shoving the cardigan off of her shoulders, and she is reaching to undo his belt and fumbling open the buttons on his ridiculously tight jeans. His cock springs up as soon as it has room to move, the fat, shiny head of it poking out above the waistband of his navy blue boxer shorts.

Mark grabs her thighs just where they meet her butt and lifts. She wraps her legs around his trim, athlete's waist and puts her arms around his neck. Her head is higher than his, this way, so she bends her neck to reach his mouth again, and they kiss and kiss and kiss. He is trembling all over, she can feel it, but his grip on her is secure, and she doesn't worry that he will drop her. His cock is hard between them, pressed right up against her, and she wiggles a little, grinds down against it, and Mark makes a shocked, broken sound and comes, wet rush of warmth soaking into the delicate fabric of her panties.

"Oh my god," Mark says. He sounds wrecked, and Scarlett feels him sway a little, so she puts her feet back on the floor. "Oh my god," he says again, resting his forehead on her collarbone, and _oh my god_, she thinks, as reality starts trying to set in again. What did she just _do_?

"Mark, hey," she says, smoothing a hand down his bare back in as non-sexual a manner as she can, considering she is touching a half-naked guy who just came all over her. She needs to distance herself, try to reduce the fallout from the catastrophe that has just occurred, but Mark is kissing her clavicle, just tiny presses of lips, and it's getting hard to think again. She tries to work up the determination to push him away, but before she finds it, he raises his head and kisses her again, even more passionately than before.

"Oh my god," he keeps muttering into her mouth, and before she knows it he is walking her backwards toward the bed. He tumbles her down onto it, eyes boring into her as he undoes his jeans the rest of the way and kicks them off along with his boxers. He's most of the way to hard again already, she sees, because he is _seventeen, oh my god_, but before she can start to freak out again, Mark brushes his thumb over that spot on her inner thigh that gets her going every time.

She must have made some noise, because Mark looks at her and almost smirks before he climbs fully onto the bed. He puts his hand in the bend of her knee and angles her leg just so, and then he dips his head and _bites_ at that spot. Scarlett knows she makes a noise this time, hears the short, sharp cry she lets out, and feels the way her whole body arches off the bed.

Scarlett pants as he licks over the reddened skin, the shocky pleasure of it leaving her unable to even think about protesting as Mark works her ruined panties down and off, a decidedly smug look on his face. He tosses them off the end of the bed without a backward glance and presses the tenderest kiss just below her navel. The kiss turns into a lick, and Scarlett moans as he drags his tongue in a wet stripe up her abdomen, stopping only when he encounters the bottom edge of her bra.

Mark works his hands under her body to fiddle with the clasp, but his mouth stays busy, kissing and licking and sucking along the tops of her breasts. She brings a hand up to cup the back of his head, tugs at his hair once more, and his hands still underneath her back. He lifts his head just enough that she can see his expression, and his eyes are wild and dark when their gazes meet. She pulls on his hair again, and he growls, yanking his hands out from underneath her and jerking one cup of her bra down, having evidently given up on getting the whole apparatus off. Mark's mouth comes down on her exposed breast immediately, and he places frantic kisses and little nips all over it before he sucks her nipple in, tiny hurt-sounding noises escaping him all the while. She has both hands on his head now, holding him in place, gripping his hair so tightly when he scrapes the gentlest hint of teeth over her sensitive nipple.

His hips are working the whole time, rubbing his erection mindlessly over her hipbone, and her body is responding, rocking her pelvis up to meet his with every thrust. With his mouth still busy at her breast, he reaches one hand down to touch between her legs. She is so wet for him already, so primed that all it takes is one good rub of his fingers over her clit and her inner walls are clenching, muscles working helplessly as she comes.

She comes, but Mark is the one who cries out, moving up to push his mouth against hers again, drinking in her shuddery breaths. His kisses are frantic now, and he has to turn his head away and take several deep breaths before he asks, "Can I?" It's the first time he has actually asked her permission for any of this, and she knows that she should say no, she should be the adult, but she _wants_ it, wants _him_ so much.

Scarlett nods, rasps out, "Yeah, yes," in a voice that she doesn't even recognize. Mark bites his bottom lip and looks suddenly like he might cry, but instead he kisses her again, and when he pulls back he flashes her a smile that is equal parts joy and reassurance.

She starts to tell him where the condoms are, in the middle drawer of the nightstand on what used to be Mike's side of the bed, but he's already there, grabbing a foil packet like he knew exactly where to find it.

He has been confident up to now, so assured of himself, but his hands are shaking as he works to rip open the condom wrapper, and when he drops it for the second time, Scarlett picks it up. She gets the condom out and rolls it onto him, more slowly than she needs to, getting a feel for his hard cock, every bit as gorgeous as the rest of him.

Mark is trembling all over, now, so she tries to sound gentle when she says, "Come on." What she wants to do is scream it, _come on, come on, nownowNOW_, but she holds it in as she lays back, coaxing him down with her. "Come on." She pets his face, strokes down his back. She gets both hands on his ass and pulls a little, urges him closer until he's almost where she wants him. "Come on."

His confidence seems to come back as swiftly as it went, and soon Mark is taking control. He tugs her down the mattress just a bit and coaxes her legs up and around his waist. He gets himself into position, holding back just long enough to ask, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she breathes, and he pushes forward. She holds her breath during his exquisite slide in, not wanting anything at all to compete with this feeling. She starts again when he's all the way in, but by then Mark has stopped breathing.

"Mi- Mark?" She stumbles over his name, driving home the fact that she has never, ever done this before with anyone but Mike.

"I missed you so much," Mark whispers, and she has no idea what that even means, but he starts moving then, long slow drags of his cock inside her, and it feels so much like coming home that she thinks she must have missed him, too, even though they've never done this before.

"Yeah," she gasps. "Yeah."

\--

In her real life, Scarlett lets the cooling water out of the tub. She dries herself off with a fluffy towel, moisturizes, and slips into her nightgown. In the bedroom, her husband is already asleep, but he stirs when she joins him under the covers.

"Hey, baby," he mumbles. "Good bath?"

Scarlett smiles into her pillow. "Yes," she tells him. "Very relaxing."


End file.
